Maoyuu Maou Yuusha Review — F

There are a lot of anime that bore me. Usually that’s why I give out F ratings. But rarely do I find an anime that I actively despise. Maoyuu Yuusha is that anime.

I explained why in detail in an earlier post: read that for the full story. The short version is, it attempts to tell a story about human history and economics, and how people can better the world using modern ideas. The problem is, despite claiming that the world would be a better place if humans respected each other, through an end to racism, an end to economic exploitation, an end to war, etc., the show itself holds no respect for humanity. It treats humans like dumb sheep.

Why isn’t the world a perfect place? Two main reasons: first, ignorance. The people of the past didn’t know about crop rotation, didn’t know any demons (that’s why they hate them), and didn’t know that serfdom was bad. If someone just told them serfdom was bad, of course they’d immediately drop it! The second reason the world isn’t perfect is bad leaders: for example, the leader of the church just wants to amass power. That stuff about worshiping the light spirit? Oh, he actually hires the demons to give him someone to lead a crusade against. Oh yeah and he has a bounty out for the light spirit’s corpse, by the way. No one in the church actually believes the teachings of the church. No one practicing feudalism actually believes serfdom is right. No one who is racist against demons is actually racist against demons.

If only a wise, enlightened leader would show them the right direction, all the world’s problems would be solved. In short, Maoyuu Yuusha is colonialist, neo-liberal tripe. It has no respect for the people of this world, and thinks that with a few ideas from the future (from people who, of course, know better than these backwards peasants) the world can suddenly become a much better place.

This paternalism towards people who don’t share a modern, Western system of values is best shown in the Head Maid’s conversation with the runaway serf. She tells the serf that if she continues to be a serf and doesn’t run her own life, she’s not a human. Just an insect. This becomes a running theme throughout the series, leading to an “inspiring” speech by the runaway girl where she calls all the other serfs insects after being lectured by the Demon King for a while on modern ideas. This causes a revolution and brings about the Protestant reformation. (Oh, except the protestants don’t really believe in the light spirit either, this was all just about economics.) Do I even need to explain why a philosophical system that doesn’t consider serfs humans is so despicable?

Finally, Maoyuu Yuusha tries to tell us about history. But to Maoyuu Yuusha, history isn’t about humans. It’s all explained by middle school economics and neo-liberalism. The characters in Maoyuu Yuusha don’t have names because they don’t need them. History isn’t about people. Do I have to explain why this is retarded? You can learn more about history from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer than from Maoyuu Yuusha.

Funny – my first thought when I read descriptions on the first few episodes and all this talk of ECONOMICS! and CROP ROTATION! was that this show could have been Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Anime. Intrigued, I watched some of it, and was quite a bit disappointed.

I didn’t enjoy the show, but I’m not going to say I actively disliked it. I just had really high expectations that were brutally crushed.

The plot was incredibly (and I can’t stress that enough) dumbed down, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was offensive. Being a serf is not respectable in any way, shape or form. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Technological advances pave the way for a better future. These are all true; they’re just poorly dealt with in this show.

I actually found the use nicknames kind of clever. It just emphasized that each person had a specific role to play in society whether it was the soldier, the merchant or the scholar. Again, it was too simplified to effectively get the point across but at least an effort was being put forth.

Being a serf sucks, for sure. But serfs are respectable people. If slaves are just insects, as this show claims, then what’s wrong with slavery? Insects are better off having their betters take care of them, after all. Technological advances do make things better. But these people don’t make any of the advances themselves, their better hands the advances to them on a silver platter and drags humanity along on her coattails.

The use of nicknames itself was fine, it’s the reason they used nicknames which annoyed me: the dehumanization of history.